This was the blog of a blacksmith.
Soot Happens, but you clean yourself up when you need to (even if it takes years). If you find that life isn't where you want it, just toss it back in the coals, bring it to heat, and reforge.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Inspected the hives today, and James assisted (though he is quite scared of bees—or any flying insect for that matter—he was quite brave and didn't flee).

Hive 1 is doing quite well, all but one frame are fully drawn, and the final frame is half comb (it's a foundationless frame). All the cells I could see had something going on from storage, to brood, to cleaning for next use. The half-comb frame had eggs in every cell—I tried to show James but he was unable to see the eggs. I swapped two non-adjacent frames from the top box with empty frames from the now 3rd new box I've added. Remember, I'm running all medium equipment, and that three medium boxes is equivalent to two deep boxes. To further mess up the standard beekeepers, I'm also running all 8-frame equipment, instead of 10-frame. So, all-in-all, hive one is doing quite well and growing exponentially.

Hive 2 is still putting along, they seem to be using only half of each brood box (the left half if you're looking at the front of the hive, or the downhill side if thinking about it in terms of the yard). I shifted some frames around, hoping they will grow a bit, but this hive has been much slower than Hive 1 from the beginning.